


Fit to Break

by comfycozysweaters



Series: Space Pirates [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Space Pirates, Depression, Langst, M/M, Space Pirate AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-08
Updated: 2018-10-08
Packaged: 2019-07-27 23:09:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16229234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/comfycozysweaters/pseuds/comfycozysweaters
Summary: “Guess we’re stuck here. Wanna visit that bar down by the docks? Drown our sorrows in booze and warm bodies?” Lance was grinning as he said this and Keith wanted to punch him right in his stupid face.So he did.





	Fit to Break

**Author's Note:**

> Yes I wrote more. Thank you all for  
> such a warm reception for this silly AU! I’ll collect these in a series in case I write more.

“You ever seen anything as beautiful as this?” Lance’s voice was light, happiness and mirth carrying it through the air as their ship burned. His posture was loose and relaxed, as if he were watching the sun rise rather than their hope died in front of them.   
  
Keith grit his teeth and clenched his fists. This wasn’t the first time he’d caught Lance flippantly remarking in the most inappropriate way. It was as if he didn’t see the pain and suffering before him, just one joke after the next. Ever since he lost his leg, lost Allura, he’d been increasingly insufferable. First with the depression that saw him at a bar until last call, sleeping with anyone that would have him, and wallowing in his uselessness and hurt. Then the mood shifted. He saw their bounty, heard their sentences from both the Galra and the Garrison, and shut down. Only to restart like a flipped switch. Manic. A cold mirth. Ruthless.   
  
It worried Keith to no end but he was fucking sick of it. After months of this behavior, he was ready to crack. It was bad enough nothing seemed to phase Lance anymore, but then he’d gotten so close to death so many times that Keith was convinced he didn’t care if he lived or died. Any time he saved him, Lance would just laugh, giddy and hysterical, and marvel at the good luck.   
  
Now a ship burned, their ship, the ship they were finally able to afford to get the hell out of this side of the galaxy and back into neutral space, and Lance was marveling at it’s beauty?    
  
“Guess we’re stuck here. Wanna visit that bar down by the docks? Drown our sorrows in booze and warm bodies?” He was grinning as he said this and Keith wanted to punch him right in his stupid face.   
  
So he did.   
  
He punched him, then he punched him again, and suddenly he was straddling the other man with his fists balled in Lance’s shirt and tears of anger and frustration clinging to his eyelashes. Lance just blinked up at him and smiled, blood coloring his teeth. “That’s a no then?”   
  
Keith slammed Lance’s head into the ground. “Shut up! Shut the hell up!” His voice cracked but he didn’t care. He’d had enough of this. He’d had enough of Lance. “How can you brush this off? We’re sentenced to death in this quadrant, hunted by every fucking ship in the known universe, and our one ticket home just went up in flames! How is any of that funny?!”   
  
Lance’s smile turned dark. “It’s a cosmic joke. All of it.” At Keith’s confusion, Lance shrugged. “We fight and we fight and we fight and nothing changes. Death follows us like the plague and infects any good we come across while we continue the cycle. Aren’t you ever tired of it?”   
  
Keith froze, confusion loosening his fists. “We fight so we can survive. So we can get home.”   
  
Lance laughed at that. “Home? We have no home, Keith. Our home wants us behind bars while every other part of the galaxy wants us dead. And survive? What’s the point of surviving if we can’t live?” His eyes glance away. “Do we even deserve to?”   
  
Understanding hit Keith and he sighed, dragging himself so that he could lay next to Lance and stare up at the sky. “We do what we have to.”   
  
“What if I don’t want to anymore?” His voice is small and Keith turns to look at Lance’s profile. His smile was gone and he was staring into nothing. “What if the cycle never breaks? Are we supposed to fight forever? Be miserable and alone with no end in sight?”   
  
Keith took Lance’s hand in his and squeezed it. “You’re not alone and this fight won’t be forever. If it’s a cycle, then we break it. We don’t just give up. That’s the easy way out and if you truly believe we don’t deserve salvation then it’s an option we can’t consider.”   
  
“I lost my career. I lost my leg. I lost my love. What else do I have to lose before you see there’s no point to it?” Pain was clear in Lance’s voice, lancing Keith right through the heart. He wanted so badly to take that pain and spare Lance, but knew he couldn’t. “What we’ve had to do, what we still do, it... it’s breaking me, Keith. I’m not like you, I didn’t grow up fighting to survive. All of this... it’s new and it’s too damn much. With the bounty on our heads it’s only a matter of time before we’re dead.”   
  
The manic smile was back, a twinkle in Lance’s eyes as he finally looked at Keith. It made Keith's stomach churn and bile rise in the back of his throat. “So why fight it? I’m having my fun before the end catches up with us, that’s all.”   
  
Keith scowled. “We’re not dying, Lance. You’re not dying. We are together, you haven’t lost me yet and I refuse to lose you so you better get used to the idea of living.” Anger made his words strong, made Lance’s eyes clear to really see Keith as he was now, determined.    
  
This wasn’t the last time they had this discussion. In fact it was the first of many blow ups between the two as they pirated ships and stations to survive in the Galra controlled sectors. As time wore on Lance got worse and worse. Sometimes the carefree happiness he exuded was refreshing. He’d pour them drinks, crack some jokes, lift Keith’s spirit from whatever hole it’d crawled in that day.   
  
Other times... Keith worried as much as he was angered. He broached the subject again, reminding Lance that he wasn’t alone, that the pain they felt meant they were alive. Depending on his mood, Lance would either laugh and toast his drink to Keith or he’d lash out, stripping Keith bare and tearing open old wounds.   
  
The worst of it was when Lance’s leg gave him trouble. His prosthetic wasn’t top of the line, but it was all they could afford without bringing attention to themselves. It looked plain, not at all flashy like it’s owner, and worked well enough, but it broke down from time to time. When it did, he grew moody and sarcastic, his humor edged in defeat. Keith wasn’t sure which he preferred, Euphoric or Bitter.   
  
Lance wouldn’t leave his bed. His leg was off, taken apart on the floor beside him with a tool kit and polish for up keep seemingly abandoned in the middle of the task. He was facing the wall wrapped up in his blanket and a sweater pulled tight around him.    
  
Keith sat on the edge of the bed with a glass of water. “You need to get up, Lance.” He kept his voice soft, knowing anything more would upset his friend. Lance just shrugged and burrowed even deeper into his cocoon. Keith sighed and set a hand on his shoulder. “At least drink some water and eat. We’ve got a fight to get ready for. That mining ship is leaving it’s post in the next day or two.”   
  
Lance grew rigid and mumbled into his pillow.   
  
“Lance I can’t hear you.”    
  
Some more mumbling but sharper this time. Keith shook his head. “Lance.”   
  
Violently Lance sat up, flinging his blanket off and glaring at Keith as he did so. “There’s always a fight!” His frame shook with anger. “Always someone to steal from or murder or-or or rescue!” He grew quiet, fisting the blanket in his hands. “It never fucking ends.”   
  
Keith didn’t know how to respond so he didn’t, letting Lance get what he needed off of his chest.    
  
“It never ends, Keith!” There were tears in his eyes. “It never ends.”    
  
“I know.”   
  
Lance huffed and fell back against the wall, huddling into himself. “It doesn’t even matter. We save one, four more need saving. We fight one, four more seek revenge. The fighting never ends. Betraying people then being betrayed, forming alliances that fall apart and rebuild day after day and we tell ourselves it’s for survival. But it’s not! It’s just one war turning into another. We could die tomorrow and it wouldn’t change so why are we even bothering?”   
  
His anger was settling and he rubbed viciously at his scalp as if it that would drag out the pain and hurt from the last few months. “Why bother if we’re all dead anyways. It’s the Galra Empire. No one escapes them.” He laughs. “Especially not numbers one and two Most Wanted right here.” His laughter subsides into a wistful smile. He looks up at Keith. “After all we’ve done, I welcome death.”   
  
Keith frowned and grabbed Lance by the back of his neck, dragging him close enough to press their lips together in a short but intense kiss. “I don’t. And I need you, Lance, so if you wont live for yourself, live for me.”   
  
Lance just stared wide eyed at him until Keith got up. “Finish your leg. The mining ship contains some rare materials we can use to trade.”    
  
It would still be awhile before Lance’s walls fell. For him to drag Keith out of the grips of death at the hand of the Galra. He cracks then, on their ship. He laughs when Keith finally starts breathing again. His laughter turns into sobs as he clings to Keith as the realization that he did have more to lose crashed into him. His reckless behavior took on an edge as he went from welcoming death to fighting it tooth and nail. He let Keith share the weight of what they’d become and never once looked back with regret.    
  
He was broken, but sometimes things had to break to be fixed. And sometimes those fixes molded into a completely different shape than before. He broke so he could fit better in this role he found himself in.    
  
He broke so he could fit with Keith.   
  
His jokes were still awful though. There was no changing that.


End file.
